Re: "C" vrs ADA

[daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)]

in article <1065@vu-vlsi.UUCP>, harman@vu-vlsi.UUCP (Glen Harman) says:
> I am a senior EE student whose current career goal is to work in an aerospace
> and/or military research field.  To better my chances, I would like to 
> supplement my Fortran skills with another language.  "C" has been recommended
> to me many times, and I was just about to buy a manual when I started hearing 
> about ADA.
> 
> Is it suggested learning for the major corporate engineers?  Is it
> filtering down into the public engineering sectors?  Is it too specialized
> to be applied elsewhere if I didn't get the desired job?

The biggest problems with Ada is the massive size of its compiler and the
verbosity of it's language.  I guess if you really like Pascal or Modula2,
you might adjust, but if you're used to C, it might take some getting used
to.  Coming from a Fortran background, any modern language would be a step
up, certainly.  The compiler size is a concern when it comes to relying on
that compiler to produce accurate code.  It's certainly simpler to produce
an accurate compiler for a small language like C or Pascal than for a very
large on like Ada.  

As for where it's used, mainly DOD I'd guess.  It certainly isn't used much,
if any, in commercial or industrial sectors.  C's the language for most of
these, though your Fortran experience could come in handy in some heavy
duty scientific fields (most machines have Fortran compilers that code better
than existing C compilers, but since there's more work being done on C, I
wouldn't be surprised if this is changing).  Ada is certainly general purpose
enough to be used elsewhere if you have access to a compiler for it, and it
generally has alot of things built into it that you have to add to C language
(like tasks, exceptions, etc.).

> Being that I am relatively unfamiliar with what is being used in these fields,
> I am turning to those of you in the know.  If you have any thoughts on the pros
> and cons of either language, and/or would care to make a suggestion, I would
> greatly appreciate it. If you could, please recommend a book on the subject. 

Any language you learn will help you when the next one comes along.  If you're
not pressed for time, the best thing to start off with would probably be a 
good book on general computer science; there's alot more to this than what
you've seen in Fortran.  A book I would recommend is "Fundamental Structures
of Computer Science", by Wulf, Shaw, Hilfinger, and Flon; Addison-Wesley, 1981.
I studied EE and CS in college; in school I had used mainly Pascal and LISP,
and some C, SNOBOL, and APL.  My first REAL summer job required that I learn
PL/M-80; my first job after graduation required that I learn ISPS, Bliss,
VAX Macro Assembler, and Fortran.  If you know the things to expect in any
language, you can pick up new, unexpected ones rather quickly.

> Please send replies to:  \!{cbmvax, pyrnj, bpa }\!vu-vlsi\!harman
> 
> Thank you for you help!
> 
> Glenvar Harman
-- 
Dave Haynie     Commodore-Amiga    Usenet: {ihnp4|caip|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh
"The A2000 Guy"                    PLINK : D-DAVE H             BIX   : hazy
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